By results over the past five years, United Soccer Academy Mount Pleasant has been the strongest boys program in our state. The statement is supported by number of teams winning State Championships ( prior to CESA, DSC, SCUFC, USA/MP leaving the state leagues ).
This may once have been true, even though the numbers of player commitments used in their marketing are deceiving. Now, judging from U12 and below, it has already ceased to be the case. Moving forward there look to be even greater issues.
When Mount Pleasant Soccer Booster Club, now dba USAMP, acted as a local branch of South Carolina United(they were doing usiness as SCUMP then) and acted as a partner to the Battery Academy, they were able to draw in talents from a wide swath of the coastal area. Later they enjoyed a partnership with Tormenta FC, likely to help get DPL status, for what that is worth. Since those relationships were terminated, and the market welcomed new competition in the form of GPS and CBSC, USAMP has begun a struggle to remain dominant.
For various reasons, last year GPS(NASA, Coastal and JIYSC), Cainhoy and CBSC took many players from the USAMP teams. USAMP can tell you how many, but my guess is they lost 1/4 of their club. That puts a huge financial onus on the remaining players to cover the overhead through fee increases, fundraising and USAMP tournament participation. If rumors are true, there has also been a reduction in coaches pay or increased demand on coaches. This is likely fueling the practice of coaches coaching 3(!) teams and directors also coaching 2 teams. No wonder it is so hard to make schedules; there seems to be no coherent curriculum; a parent can't get anyone to respond to calls/emails. Directors don't have time to direct.
This in the face of its struggles to find field space. With the loss of the Old Village Baptist church fields and the expiration of the contract for Patriots Point fields and Carolina Park fields (5 groups including USAMP will share just 2 fields Mon-Thurs on new contract) there was already going to be a problem. The reduction of planned fields in the neighboring town of Awendaw from 4 to 3 seems to have made the huge delays in action on the part of the club's executives even more devastating as those fields are nearing the drop-dead date(if not already past) for breaking ground if they want to use them in the fall.
